Why nerf NC MAXes already pathetic range?

The 0m TTK difference between the fastest NC AI MAX weapon on infantry and the fastest VS/TR AI MAX weapons on infantry is 0.3 seconds.

Functionally the same - however the TR and VS weapons carry much more useable range, many more kills per magazine and reload much quicker as well.

This is without taking into account ZOE or Lockdown as well.






As for having the best AI MAX? The stats would disagree, currently the NC AI MAX weapons seem to be performing much worse than TR and VS AI MAX weapons in those stats you kept erronously posting a couple of weeks ago (when you account for them being historic data and take weekly snapshots of the stats).

No. No no no. When you see and flee, like most do around corners, you have a good shot at not dying, I'm at around 50:50. The TR/VS tank has to AIM all his shots and hit with all of them for the TTK to be valid. A NC max in a room guarding a door has almost no chance not killing someone.

You can spout the TTK all you want, but a) VS/TR isn't shotgunbased so it requires perfect accuracy and b) it isn't frontloaded, meaning the ability to flee is there. A NC max is still the best point guard because of said factors, and they don't come with stats because they are fundamentally different.

Its kind of like comparing LA jetpack sound to INF cloaker sound. Both are sounds but the classes are fundamentally different so drawing a parallel is impossible.

When we are talking close combat, having to aim is moot. You try to make it sound so difficult. Having a constant rate of fire is also very forgiving of misses comparable to slower firing with spread from a shotgun.

Looks to me like the damage is just better, except at really close ranges (where it's still an instakill, so practically the same), and at ranges so long the COF is what's limiting you at which point you should use slugs.

Stupid design choices are stupid , i made billions of treads about this since tech test and the devs are still closed mind on that one

Wow you guys are still trying to make the NC Max OP. Well it's likely not worth the argument because you won't ever believe anything else than NC Max = OP, but here are my thoughts on the matter which I posted in another thread where someone asked: post all the nerfs it's gotten, where is the NC Max best used in the current game meta? My response below:



You use it in situations where a Max is not needed.

If your faction infantry are winning a push, then you can set up by a doorway and hope to catch some unlucky sod who walks through. Congratulations, you are doing nothing but farming kills and your faction will not miss you.

If your faction infantry are losing a push and you'd like to help them push the enemy back, good luck, the NC Max is fodder in this role. It won't do anything but take your resources and add another death to your list as you hope to at least get 1 kill in the process to make it worth your while. Congratulations, you are not helping your factions situation, their efforts at supporting you would have been better spent elsewhere strategizing or doing something else.

At best, it's a defensive Max that if properly used in its niche can help stop enemies from flowing into a well defended facility. Spawn camping, as it were. It won't help your team take territory or win alerts. This is the major problem with NC Maxes. They won't turn an engagement. If you are using one effectively within its niche, it's likely you aren't helping the battle. The fact that someone can kill streak while using an NC Max is irrelevant because of this major flaw that continues to go ignored.

Lol you honestly think that mutilators and cosmos can only get 5 kills per reload? Like seriously? Are you really suggesting that every time you shoot an enemy as an NC MAX they die in one hit? Saying an NC MAX can get 5 kills per magazine easily is just downright silly. I think I speak for everyone who has ever used an NC MAX or even just a shotgun in general when I say that just because a shotgun CAN one shot kill an enemy, doesn't mean it DOES. In all honesty, even if I am aiming directly at a person I can unload my entire dual extended mag grinders and not get a kill. I have about 40% accuracy on both of my Grinders and yet I have this happen all the time. I can honestly say that the times that it takes more than one shot for me to kill infantry far outweigh the times that I get one shot kills. Additionally, headshots don't really help the ttk on shotguns, however they significantly increase ttk on the VS and TR MAX lmgs. And at ranges where NC MAXes can "one shot" it is quite easy for VS and TR MAXes to get headshots, especially with mercys and blueshifts which I die to most often.

Again with the slugs, as I have said before, if you would read... slugs are **** on MAXes in that you CAN NOT ADS. Seriously, anyone who has used them in battle, especially against other MAX units knows what I am talking about. 20 shot kills are not kosher with me for MAX units at point blank.

In 0.3 seconds there's no difference (due to human reaction time, lag and clientside hit detection) dead = dead for both.

You can't do anything different in that extra 0.3 seconds, you are just as DEAD.




So given that NC and TR and VS are functionally the same at lowerst TTK on Infantry, all there is left is those ssme TR and VS weapons (that functionally equal NC AI 0m TTK) having much better TTKs at range.

The ranges where the extra damage carry comes into play (over the direct nerf to damage per shot) is where pellet scatter really starts to nerf damage per hit. So no it's a nerf.


Strangely they said they wanted to make shotguns more rewarding for aiming.

This doesn't do this because scatter is a strange beast and no matter how well you aim you cannot account for scatter. Now if they'd dropped damage per shot and reduce CoF that would have done what they said they were trying to do, but this is just a plain nerf.

And that's for weapons that got a bit of extra damage carry on range. The Mattock, of example, just got plain nerfed at every range.

SOE really needs to fix the NC Max shotgun weapons. For example the TR miniguns are now much deadlier at both close range and long range in terms of damage, magazine size and accuracy. This is a giant disadvantage.

While nerfing shotguns and making them unrealistic and worthless next to an SMG's is not an issue because there are other options for all factions infantry, this is not the case for Maxes, and the NC is now clearly the worst AI Max.

That sums it up.

Also with the TR Max minguns I can kill multiples of people before needing to reload. With the NC max I have to reload after only one or if very lucky two infantry kills.

I saw a very interesing example of TR AI MAX power with lockdown yesterday.

There's a spawn on Indar near the NW AMP station that allows you to fire straight out of the spawn shield at a gate in the wall. There were 1-2 (it can't have been more than 2 because only that many can shoot out the door) Locked Down TR AI MAXs utterly ripping up most of an NC zerg as they came aound the corner to the gate. Even at that range (must have been 50+m) their TTK on infantry was very low indeed.

With any NC AI MAX at that range they'd have been lucky to land more than a pellet or two as people ran past to cover and people would have just got past in the ridiculously long reload times anyway.



Now that's not to say a TR MAX shouldn't be able to do that, but when a NC AI MAXs only real advantage is a 0.3 second TTK bonus at 0m........ well it's really time for the NC AI MAX to have some defining advantage.

I never said the slugs were great, I just said they're the best we've got.

Since GU11 I've been running dual mattocks with slugs exclusively, only I've switched it up to use the shield instead of charge and I've observed two things:

If you put the shield up, other MAXes will just start shooting other things or go away. They aren't going to just sit there patiently and wait for you to reload before resuming the fight. Nor is one of the every-class-but-infils that has C4 going to respect your shield enough to not murder the **** out of you.

BUT

If you pop that shield when you're at about half health, what you're doing is creating a safe and warm zone for any medics and engies to plop down and not be killed by rocket spam and, and this is the important bit, repair you AS YOU ARE TAKING DAMAGE, allowing you to stop and line up your shots like you have to do with slugs.

I went on a 36 kill streak with the mattocks yesterday doing this entirely due to the slugs allowing me to choose my fights, the hit detection allowing me to murder ZOE MAXes (comets still go straight through the shield tho) at long last, and providing engie protection in exchange for repairs that allow me to run flak to survive ****. Engie support is also nice because we run out of ammo SO DAMN FAST.

I think with hit detection fixed, if the shield provided a movement bonus instead of penalty, it might just be worth using a lot more often. Outside of towers and biolabs charge is more useful by far, and honestly even inside them most of the time as well. Oh and ZOE/lockdown need to provide zero benefit to NS weaponry because it makes zero sense that the NC has the worst COMMON POOL MAX weaponry just because we're the NC.

Of course, all that being said we need real guns and shield needs and overhaul. Let that not distract you from the point, I just take exception to the claim that slugs are useless.

MAXes are very expensive now. Unless you're in a tower you shouldn't be using buckshot, as it's zero utility. 350 infantry demands a unit that can serve a variety of roles and that's a slug max.

I don't think they can really fix hit-detection, probably the best they could do is extend coverage to the feet and wrap (or curve it) it around the MAX a bit (like so - \___/ ) to try and take the edge off hit detection.

I'd prefer a passive speed use when deployed over an upgrade to 180 degrees, but either would be nice. If it isn't hit boxes then it's just damage straight up getting through the shield, which a widening wouldn't help. More speed, however, is ALWAYS good

Because people are fine with something being more powerful at long ranges, but not ok with something being more powerful at close ranges. I don't know why.

The thing is, with resources being the way they are, there really is no point to pull an NC MAX anywhere but where the pellets are useful. Slugs are mediocre at best and do not begin to compete with other MAX AI weapons even at range and they completely remove the NC MAX's strengths at close range. Generally when you are going to lower one thing to improve another you want to decrease your weaknesses in order to increase your strengths. If you decrease your strengths to increase your weaknesses you are removing what makes you strong to begin with.

Yep.